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Last year I read this amazing book called “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari. It was a detailed look at the history of humans on this planet and his research was so detailed and the book is so well written – I highly recommend it. One point that he made in the book is about how humans have dominated the entire world for their own needs and have totally destroyed other species.

In the quote above, just thinking about the scale of these numbers are mind blowing. Take the number of domesticated dogs (400 million) compared to wolves (200,000). That is a 20 to 1 ratio! When you think of all living things on this planet weighing 1,100,000 tons and 1,000,000 tons is humans and domesticated livestock! Amazing. Think of 1.5 billion cattle to a few handful of other wild animals. The book seriously made me think we are the dominate species on this planet and like a virus we are taking it over until we kill everything.

I thought this was such a good quote because I have seen it so many times in my 27 year experience working with the Nuclear industry. People often overlook technology like valves and heat exchangers and taking them for granted – this non focus can sometimes end badly an even death. Also I like how Rickover calls out the supply chain of such components and how manufacturing errors in workmanship and materials can cause the entire system to fail. Procurement can be looked down upon by engineering sometimes but their role is also needed for true safety in the nuclear industry.

I was digging a little deeper and found an article from the Chicago Tribune on this speech from Rickover.

I saw something in Facebook about how great Trump is because he lowered the unemployment rate for his first month in office. I have always been interested in the employment statistics and had visited the employment rate website at the department of labor a few times so I visited it again to see the impact of one month in office. My main goal was to see if this drastic shift in unemployment (-0.1%) effected them who would have less education attainment levels.

The first thing you realize is for people without a high school degree have an excessive unemployment rate – 9%(+0.1% for the month)! That is almost 10 million people that really have a hard time getting a job compared to the rest of us. Looking at the other groups you can see how much higher it is – For a high school degree only – 5.4% (down 0.5% for the month), some college / associate degree 4.3% (up 0.2% for the month), and lastly a bachelors degree at 2.4% (down 0.1% for the month). With a college degree it is 3X less unemployment rate!

Then looking at the data for the last 10 years you realize it has been this way the entire decade. Also the recession hurt the non-high school degree the most. For example, people without a high school degree, at the height of the crash had in 2010 of 14.9% compared to college degree at the same time of only 4.7%! That is 3X less – just terrible olastn people who have financial difficulty already.

From this data done for 2015, you can see that a BS degree has 2X+ more earnings then someone without a HS degree.

Lastly I wanted to know a better idea of who are these people who have such an issue with unemployment. From the graph above from the US Census, my questions were answered. First you can see a little change in the non HS degree area – from 65+ at 84.3% to 25-34 at 90.5%. This is some change in 40 years but sad so little(+6.2%). Getting a high school degree is the first long term goal you achieve and failing to get that, besides financial stress and unemployment, is lower self confidence in reaching goals.

My mother worked at the US Naval Station in Brunswick Maine for over 30 years and I grew up hearing everything about the Navy. One of the most colorful people my mom always talked about was Admiral Rickover. Last year I read this great book that was written in his own words called “The Never-Ending Challenge of Engineering: Admiral H.G. Rickover”. It was an amazing book and it really discussed a depth of engineering that I have always been fond of.

One story that the Admiral talks about in one of his speeches is about the Chief Engineer of the USS Oregon named Robert Milligan who served during the Spanish war of 1880’s. He talks about how Milligan changed the way engineers were treated in the Navy – before his tenure they were nothing more then part of the crew, but after that, they are part of the thinking officers on the ship.

As the story goes, the captain of the Oregon listened to Milligan while working the blockade and let him keep the boilers slowly burning so they could get to full speed fast! This allow them to catch the fastest of the Spanish ships as it tried to out race the entire US Navy.

Another story about Milligan on the Oregon was when they were going from California to Cuba as quickly as possible, the Captain asked Milligan to use the limited fresh water for the crew and use seawater for the boiler. Milligan asked if he could speak freely and recommended using the boiler feed water for the crew and fresh water for the boilers. His changed allowed the ship to do the massive trip in 66 days (this was before the Panama canal and had to go around South America). This forged the relationship between the two men and allowed engineering to have a larger role in the ship decisions.

The best thing about this description of Milligan was the engineer’s engineer as Rickover describes him. The statement about walking down the engine room and hearing every noise knowing if the equipment is working correctly exemplifies that mindset- that was also a trait of Rickover when he was coming up in the Navy. People from other ships would ask his opinion because he knew equipment so well.

Last month I had a great I was at the 4C environmental conference held in Austin Texas. One night out they had buses take you to the world famous salt lick BBQ and then to a distillery. This was my first time hearing the band “The Spazmatics”. They play 80’s music in this classic Nerd look and feel. Not only where they amazing and funny, they know how to entertain!

The next day I looked them up thinking I would go see them if they traveled up to Boston, to my surprise – the band I saw was part of a multi-city Spazmatic corporation! They have a formula I guess where they get gig’s all over the country and have different people in the band. Who knew Nerd culture mixed with 80’s music was so popular.

I am reading a great book about the history of cancer – it is called “The emperor of all maladies” by Siddhartha Mukherjee- just a fantastic book. One point I want to discuss are the naysayers everyone hears when trying to change things. In the book Siddhartha talks about Dr Pinkel at St. Jude’s hospital in Nashville in the 70’s on the cutting edge of pediatric chemotherapy. In 1979 after many years of chemo trials on really sick children he did a little math of how his new thinking on cancer had been effective. Out of 278 kids, 80% cancer free. He wrote “Palliation is no longer an acceptable approach..”. He was referring to a practice not many years before that when it was standard procedure for doctors to let kids die with on intervention – “let then die in peace”.Sydney Farber and Don Pinkel did not listen to conventional wisdom, they made HISTORY! Whenever I heard “It can’t be done” it makes me think of these amazing mean and what they did to save children of horrible deaths.

I have always been a Depeche Mode fan as with all 80’s British music and 4 years ago by chance I found DMK on youtube. They were the most original cover band I have ever heard and the way they do the music is amazing. Not only is the band 2/3 children, they are all using homemade instruments!

I just looked them up today and realize they are still around – the kids are bigger and they are now doing tours! Here is a great acoustic version on Just can’t get enough.

Well I found this old letter in my basement that held my baptism records. This was over 50 years ago and I was wondering where we lived as a family back then. So today I decided to look a little harder at it and see what I find.

first, the street I was born at is no more – I am quite sure it was renamed to Dleur De Lis Drive in New Orleans. The main reason is it is would make consist with “A” and “B” street.

Also it is about 5 miles from where the church I was baptized. It must of not been that much of a drive (15 minutes on google earth now). Interesting that I have never heard about this church before this.

The church is still there – and it looks very nice from the outside.

The house does not exist anymore – perhaps it was destroyed during Katrina (it is very close to lake Pontchartrain).

From this image on google maps it looks like the entire area had damage from the storm.

Radionizer: #220
Trip: Valve and Gasket Training at Sioux Power Plant and Prairie State Power Plant
February 25th – 27th, 2013 – outside Saint Louis, Missouri
This trip was to conduct 4 4-hour seminars at 2 fossil power plants on the basics of valve packing and flange sealing. The training went off very well and I really enjoyed doing the training. It was also a chance for me to use my 2nd generation bolting demonstration unit I built from the ground up.

This photo was taken while we drove up from Venice California to Santa Barbara on the PCS (Pacific Coast Highway). Not only am I getting the lingo down, I am all in on the golden state! We had a great vacation starting in Palm Springs and then moving through the Joshua Tree National Forest, San Diego, and Los Angeles.

I think one of the best things I loved about the vacation was the time of the year – terrible weather back here in Worcester and just amazing in southern Cal. Also it was considered way off season and we had very few crowds! I will try to add that destination for every January from now on!